Blog equals website, here is why

by | Sep 24, 2005 | Advertising, Everything You Want to Know About Advertising, Marketing & the Web

I’ve tried to explain this too many times in meetings, so here it is on paper. Just because you can “Blog” on a WordPress powered site, doesn’t mean you have to.
The word “Blog” is still not understood by a lot of people, they think it has to be like a journal, a daily entry of whatever one feels like writing. Yes, it can be, there are a lot of very bad, very boring “Blogs” out there.
That doesn’t mean it has to be like that for business.
WordPress is an open-source (meaning the code that runs it is open to the developers who work on it collectively for free) software program that runs on the server (the computer that hosts a web site). It can run on any platform (Windows, Linux, Mac) but I prefer to run it on Linux- another open source solution. It requires the backend database, MySQL and PHP (both open source software solutions). It takes very little time to install and have up and running compared to trying to do a conventional HTML site in something like Dreamweaver (or GoLive or if you are desperate: Frontpage) even using templates.
Wordpress is a database driven display system for information that one, or multiple users can enter data in easily- and have it display as properly coded HTML that is searchable and works well with search engines like Google, Yahoo and the like.
This allows any company to keep their information up to date, quickly, efficiently, and with “good” code that is readable by search engines and even people using screen readers (who are visually impaired).
It does this by generating code that uses CSS (cascading style sheets), which is a lot like using a style sheet in a word processing document. This allows the owner of a WordPress site to change the look and feel of a site instantly by changing the CSS- or “Theme” by checking a check box. How easy is that? Try doing it with a hard coded site without CSS. Days, weeks. CSS is the smart persons way to build a site.
We have integrated the WordPress engine into other sites so you can barely tell it’s there: see the Rogero Buckman Architects news section, or this section of our site. Since adding the WordPress driven news section to our site hits have grown almost logarithmically every month. Not all hits generate business, but it has taken our site from being someplace that people stumble across, to a place that is actively showing up on the top page of Google search consistently.
One of the ways we have added to our sites popularity is our list of competitors. We had this on the site before, but it was static HTML, and was edited infrequently. Because of the ease of edit in WordPress, we update it as soon as we find a new firm. Why do we list our competitors you may ask? Well, we’re not afraid of competition and comparison to start off with, and because many ad agencies and design firms don’t use code that works well (or at all) with search engines. It’s actually kind of embarrassing. The point of the web is to deliver information- quickly and easily. We offer the list as a public service, since people searching for an ad agency or graphic design shop or marketing consultant in Dayton/Columbus/Cincinnati could be looking for us. It’s a basic part of marketing- being part of the evoked set- the set of options that comes to mind when thinking about purchasing a product or service- but I digress from the advantages of a WordPress blog. Soon people won’t turn to the Google local is on the upswing, but until it is more reliable, we provide this list as a service.
Another thing we’ve learned from our WordPress section of the site is that we can’t predict what search terms or phrases people use to find our competition or us. People type in odd things, and with our large numbers of marketing related words in our news section, we seem to hit more searches than our cheeky copy on the static part of the site.
It won’t be long before almost all sites are built around active engines like WordPress. Just as video production has been demystified by Apple with iMovie, and DVD creation with iDVD, WordPress is a tool that puts the power of the web into the hands of every business.
The ease of inserting links into text in WordPress also serves as an incentive to do it often. It may seem silly to some, but the frequency of links in and out are a key factor in search engine optimization. While incoming links are better than outgoing, links begat more links- trust me.
Every article in WordPress is a separate page. This is very important to your site’s visitors. How often have you navigated deep into a site, found some information that you wanted to share- and tried to send that page to a co-worker and couldn’t do it? The site was probably either built in Flash or Frames- both bad for Search- and bad for bookmarking and sharing. You can click on the title to this article and send it as a link to as many people as you want. It will also show up in Google as a complete, single page, with a descriptive snippet of text under it. A simple way to see what Google sees of your site is by going to Google and typing in site:yoursiteurl.com (or biz or net etc.) and seeing how many pages you index and what they show to visitors- I’ve made the link to this site so you can see how The Next Wave.biz site indexes.
This is a longer article than I planned to write, but this is an important subject. There are a few other key strengths to WordPress: the content is searchable, it’s organizable (using categories) and best of all, it provides RSS feeds that allow people to subscribe to you site and be notified every time you post- saving you from having to PUSH your message out with e-mail (which more people are starting to consider SPAM if it isn’t addressed individually and customized- but that’s another story).
I found this short article, “WordPress, or “How I finally built the website I needed” on someone else’s experience with WordPress and it inspired me to write this. Hopefully now, I won’t have to spend as much time explaining why a Blog is a site and is a highly effective business tool. And maybe a few of my clients will finally understand why I want to update their sites to use it.

What do you think?

Katrina offer makes national press

by | Sep 21, 2005 | Careers in Advertising, Everything You Want to Know About Advertising

The offer I made to Katrina displaced ad people was picked up by Newhouse News Service, owners of many papers - including The Times-Picayne of New Orleans. The article, “Employers give back by hiring Katrina’s Evacuees” by Katherine Reynolds Lewis speaks about the personal worth issues of those who’ve lost everything- and how to bring meaning back to their lives. Here is the section about The Next Wave:

David Esrati, chief creative officer of the Next Wave in Dayton, Ohio, has offered a job and studio space on several advertising industry Web sites.
“What you do is who you are,” Esrati said, “and if you’re sitting around doing something that’s not what you do, it’s real easy to get discouraged. Despair takes over.”

read the whole article.

Special thanks to Jack Goldenberg of Einstein Da Vinci & Goldenberg- who worked tirelessly to get this story out. Also, thanks to Matthew Richmond of the Chopping Block who built Displaceddesigner.com.

What do you think?

When ad agencies just don’t get it.

by | Sep 20, 2005 | Advertising, Everything You Want to Know About Advertising, Guerrilla Campaigns

“We don’t do guerrilla,” says a big agency in NYC, they also “don’t do web” and, no, you have to hire a design firm to do your collateral- we’re an Advertising Agency (with capital “A’s” for effect). When you get to local agencies, it’s even worse- at least around Dayton Ohio and vicinity (that would be Columbus and Cincinnati too) where they don’t even get the advertising part right.
Selling isn’t something companies can do part time. By that, I mean, your brand must live 24/7 in the world- that means on store shelves and the customers cerebral cortex. Your employees should eat, sleep and breathe your product. Think about the employees at Harley Davidson, Apple, Nike – do you think anyone rides a Yamaha into Harleys HQ or anyone is using a Dell that works at Apple- or running a marathon in Reebok’s if they work at Nike- the answer isn’t no, it’s hell no.
So- if your agency can only do one part of the dance that is critical to marketing in these days of fractured media and message overload, you may as well just give up. It ain’t going to happen. Driving your message home isn’t about creating a campaign today, run it for the next six months and work on the next one. It’s rapid fire and maneuver, because if you aren’t shooting your message at your target, your competition is.
There is no one magic media; there is no one great ad that will sell it all. You put an ad out there and you start working on a new angle to hit the market in a different way. You won’t be able to score the same way twice, the landscape changes too quickly.
So, what is a brand manager to do? A couple of things have to change- it’s time to pay for creative- and pay well, forget about the media commissions, how was anyone supposed to really make money on a 15% commission anyway? The rest of the world works on 40 points, so, if you think 15% is going to get you great ads- instead of great media bills, you can go home right now.
The scope of the work should change too. It’s not about just ads- it’s the whole experience that has to match. Expect the website, the brochures, the field work- all to have the same consistent voice, coming from the same people- the agency in partnership with the brand manager. It used to be called “integrated marketing communications” - now the “total brand experience” may be more apt.
It’s also critical to be flexible- to experiment with new media, new placement, new ideas, and especially a new honesty. Ads can entertain, but they also must inform. If you aren’t hitting an emotional chord with the audience while reaching for their gut and their brain at the same time, get back to the drawing board.
No one has time for ads anymore- they want to be part of something bigger. Your agencies job is to create that brand experience that makes the consumer feel a part of something bigger. Look at Harley Davidson’s Owners Groups (HOGS) or the Mac heads that will defend their computer to the death.
When an agency does get it, like Wieden + Kennedy got Nike, it’s a beautiful thing. So, instead of saying what an agency can and can’t do- find one that can Just Do It.